China’s Sinosteel Corporation has agreed to invest $1 billion in Zimbabwe to build a power plant and increase ferrochrome output, the southern African country’s president Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Monday.

Sinosteel president Andong Liu said the Chinese firm planned to build three additional furnaces at its majority-owned Zimasco business, which would raise ferrochrome output by 120,000 tonnes over the next five years to 300,000 tonnes per year.

Andong said he saw ferrochrome output from Zimasco at 500,000 tonnes annually in ten years’ time.

Sinosteel also plans to build a 400 megawatt coalbed methane-fired power plant in western Zimbabwe, the firm’s president added at a news conference with Mnangagwa.

“We will continue to review our process to facilitate investment inflows as well as ease of doing business,” Mnangagwa said after the signing of the investment agreement.

Mnangagwa, who came to power in November after a de facto military coup ended Robert Mugabe’s 37-year rule, has promised to rebuild the economy by opening it up to foreign investors. Source : Reuters